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The boyfriend has been asking for dessert every night and each night I forget to make something. The other day I saw a packet of those delicious jam tartlets and I remembered how much I loved them as a child. I thought jam drop biscuits would be a great substitute for those packet biscuits and are extremely easy to make! This version I originally got from Taste.com.au but I also made it dairy free as I have had a little too much cheese the last couple of days.

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and line your baking tray with baking paper. You might need 2 trays as this makes approx. 24 teeny little biscuits.

Cream the Nuttelex, vanilla and caster sugar with an electric beater till pale and creamy.

Add the flour and beat with the electric mixer until thoroughly mixed, stopping to scrape down the sides.

I found the dough to be very sticky. Roll small teaspoon sized balls and flatten slightly as you place on the baking tray. Continue until you finish all your dough and space them apart as they will spread a little.

Go and press a little dimple in each dough disc and fill with a little jam. Don’t heap the jam on as it will run off as it heats up.

Bake in the oven for around 20 minutes depending on your oven and the size of the biscuits. They will be ready when they have a nice pale golden shortbread colour (check the bottom of the biscuit isn’t burnt!).

After a long break, I am finally back! I am no longer following the RPAH elimination diet but I do continue to avoid soy, dairy and gluten. It is definitely hard to keep up the diet but I try still try to cook most of my meals so at least I can keep track of my intake of certain food groups that I know aren’t the best for me. My skin has gotten a lot better since then as I have been placed on some oral medication which has been extremely effective. The recipes I write from now on will all be gluten free but will not always follow the RPAH elimination diet. I’ll always try to give suggestions to keep it RPAH elimination diet friendly.

It is Spring in Australia and the zucchini has been very cheap. One week Aldi had 500g packs for 79c! I bought a little too much so I had a lot to use up before they went bad. I came across a zucchini brownie recipe which I thought I could make a gluten-free version and with carob instead of cocoa (cocoa is super high in amines). The brownies turned out pretty well, so much so that I converted my boyfriend to carob! He likes to zap them in the microwave to warm them and then cover it with coconut yoghurt and fresh blueberries.

Zucchini carob brownies

Gluten free, dairy free, soy free, egg free, vegan

Ingredients:

2 cups gluten-free plain flour (I use Aldi’s)

1/2 cup carob powder

1 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate soda

Pinch of salt

1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used canola)

1 cup caster sugar (up to 1 1/2 cups if it is not sweet enough for you)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 small zucchinis, grated

3-5 tablespoons water

Handful of chopped raw cashews

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and line your baking tin with baking paper.

Add dry ingredients to a large mixing bowl and mix thoroughly. Ensure that the bicarbonate soda is not in clumps or it will taste horrible when you bite into one.

Make a well in the middle of the flour and add all the wet ingredients and grated zucchini and mix well with a spoon/spatula. It is a very dry batter, practically a dough so just make sure that there are no dry spots. For my batch, I needed 5 tablespoons water. Let it stand for 5-10 mins to let the dough soak up some of the zucchini moisture.

Transfer to the baking tin and spread it out evenly. Sprinkle the chopped cashews on top and bake for approx. 30 mins depending on your oven. Use a skewer to check it is cooked, it should come out clean when ready.

Let it cool on a cooling rack before cutting them into pieces. It makes about 16 small brownies.

I felt up for a challenge so I thought of trying my hand at making gluten free puff pastry. I’ve seen UK chef, James Martin, make it on TV and it does take a bit of elbow grease but technically it is not too demanding. If you are a bit impatient like me, then perhaps buying commercially available pastry may be the go but in Sydney it can set you back $9! Nevertheless I did give it a shot and it took ages but the results were still impressive despite lacking the puffiness between the layers of pastry. I followed the recipe at artofglutenfreebaking.com which is extremely detailed so I won’t be re-posting it here. However, I substituted the flour for a GF Aldi flour mix supplemented with Orgran’s Gluten Substitute. Perhaps the Australian summers are too warm but I felt that the butter kept melting too fast and half the time I was chilling it and adding tons of tapioca starch to keep it from sticking to my table. Also the lack of gluten makes it difficult to roll the pastry out without splitting it so keep an eye out on that too!

The pastry still made a good pot pie with a crunchy, crumbly top that still resembled the flaky layers of puff pastry but just didn’t rise enough. I popped the rest of the unused pastry in the freezer for another time. So what follows is my recipe for a beef pot pie.

Beef pot pie

Gluten free, egg free, soy free, nut free, failsafe

Ingredients:

300g (ish) good quality beef, diced (I used cut up eye fillet)

2 medium sized carrots, peeled and chopped (moderate salicylates)

2 sticks of celery, chopped

1/4-1/2 leek, halved and chopped

2 cloves garlic

3 heaped teaspoons cornflour

Some water

Method:

In a pan fry the beef on high heat with a little oil to seal all the sides but don’t worry about cooking it all the way through. This is to keep the juices in as you will still need to bake it later. If you can tolerate it, brown it on all sides otherwise do as little browning as possible while attempting to seal in the juices. Once done place on a plate and set aside.

On medium heat, fry off the garlic and leek till the leek goes translucent and everything becomes aromatic. Then add in the carrots and celery and sautee till carrots are tender.

Once tender turn the heat to low and add the beef and any juices that leaked out on the plate back in with the vegetables. Add the cornflour and mix well, try to ensure there are no big clumps of cornflour.

Add a splash of water and allow it to thicken to form a gravy. You may need to adjust thickness to your liking by adding more cornflour to thicken or more water to thin it. Season well with salt.

Transfer everything into an ovenproof dish and then roll out your pastry and cover the top of the dish and trim off the excess pastry. Feel free to do nice pastry decorations here too! Brush some melted butter on top of the pastry to help golden it. Poke some steam holes in the top and bake at 180ºC till the pastry is golden and is crispy (about 30-45 minutes for my oven because it is a terrible oven).

Serve with some steam green beans and roasted potatoes.

Find the best quality beef and a cut that is normally very tender as you are cooking it for a while. Ask your butcher as they will know which would be the best. It isn’t always the most expensive cut!

You can always substitute in other vegetables and meat to your taste preference! Take out the carrots if you can’t tolerate salicylates and try swedes instead.

Wrap unused pastry (not rolled out yet) in cling film and store it in the freezer till you want to use it next.

I used butter but I think it could also be done with Nuttelex if you need to be dairy free.

I have to first start off by apologising for having such a long and unannounced hiatus. It’s been a crazy couple of months with trying to finish my PhD and starting a new part-time job. Nevertheless I have a backlog of experimental recipes to write about. Also in the last few months I have been on medication to help my skin which means I am able to eat more freely so the shift of the recipes will away from the strict elimination diet but as always will be modifiable.

This chicken sauce is a mixture of the stock standard sauces that probably will be in your fridge by now. We grill a lot of our chicken which means less cleaning up and you don’t have to stand there watching it. Also, we use thigh fillets as we find that the meat doesn’t dry out as much as chicken breast normally will.

French toast aka eggy bread is a great breakfast/brunch treat. When ever I have a loaf of GF bread and some time, I love to have this to start the day. You will fill fuller for longer as you are getting carbs plus protein! It is super easy, pretty fast and can look really fancy.

French Toast

Gluten free, dairy free, soy free, nut free, vegetarian, failsafe

Ingredients:

1 egg

2-3 slices of GF bread (one that you can tolerate)

Oil/butter for frying

Golden syrup, to serve

Method:

Crack an egg into a bowl and beat.

Cut your bread into quarters and dip into the egg (both sides). I find one jumbo egg coats about 3 slices of a small GF bread loaf. Really depends on the size of your egg and the bread though.

Place egg coated bread into a pan with a little oil, set on medium heat.

Dad just bought another box of pears at the market for $2! I know, it is a bit crazy isn’t it? Now we have a surplus of pears and I literally just finished making a batch of pear roll ups and I am stocked up on all my sauces… Too many pears and they are all ripening really fast! I decided to try make an apple pie but just substitute out the apple and put pears in instead. It worked out pretty well! I am not great with following recipes so I winged it this time around but here is the gist of it. I took a recipe for the pastry from the Taste.com.au website which was a plus because I could skip using the egg whites which is what my boyfriend thinks makes his hands itchy.

Place flours, sugar and nuttelex in a food processor. Pulse for a bit and then blend on low till it resembles bread crumbs. You might need to stop and mix up the flour at the bottom.

Add the egg yolk and water and process till it forms a dough.

Take it out and knead into a ball and then wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes till firm.

Peel your pears and dice. If they are really ripe and soft like mine, then dice into larger cubes so they don’t turn into mush. If they are still a little firm still then go smaller so they can cook a bit when you bake the pie.If you have the type of pears that are hard then you will need to dice and then cook them on the stove till they are tender, just add a touch of water into the saucepan to avoid burning.

Add the citric acid to the pears and mix well.

When the dough is cooled take 2/3 of the mix and roll it out between two sheets of baking paper till it is about an inch bigger than your tart tin. Peel off the paper every now and again to avoid deep cracks and fix cracks as you go.

When it is big enough roll it onto your rolling pin and roll it on top of your tin. Push it in and fix up the edges.

Put the pear mix into the pastry shell, don’t put any of the juice at the bottom to avoid a soggy pastry.

Now roll out the last 1/3 of the dough cut into thin strips with a knife of a pizza cutter and criss-cross them on the top of the pie. Apply pressure to stick the dough together at intersections and the edge of the pastry.

If you want, you can brush the top of the pastry with the egg white or melted butter. I skipped this so it didn’t brown as much.

Bake in the oven at 180°C for 40-45 minutes or until pastry is golden brown.

Allow to cool and serve warm!

Serve with some vanilla custard or whipped cream. If we had Rice Dream ice cream, that would be perfect… Or maybe you could dust with some powdered sugar.

My parents and I found it tasted exactly like apple pie! Hope you enjoy it!

Whenever I am wanting something new to eat I look to Asian cooking for some inspiration as it is normally gluten free when you minus all the sauces! Asian cooking and Asian ingredients tend to be gluten free as is mainly a rice based diet (yay!). I think vermicelli is an under utilised ingredient in GF cooking. It is a thin noodle made of just rice and water and dried into a little cake. You can find this in any Asian grocery store. The Asian imports won’t be GF certified but some well known brands like Chang’s are, which you can find in major supermarkets.

To prep vermicelli all you do is soak the dried noodle in boiling water till it is soft. Usually about 10 minutes or so. Just break it up when it starts to soften so the heat cooks the middle.

Soak the vermicelli in boiling water for 10-15min till soft. Break up the noodles to ensure even cooking.

Drain the noodles when cooked. The dryer the better as they becomes more sticky when they are dry and help with keeping the fritter shape. If you are impatient like me then just use some paper towel to get it as dry as you can.

Mix the spring onions and cabbage with the noodles (and the carrot if you are using it).

Pop some oil into a pan on medium heat. You will need enough to cover the bottom of your pan. Shallow frying makes it crispier! Place the noodle mix into the oil and flatten out.

When it becomes golden brown and crunchy then flip them over.

When the other side is crunchy take it out and place it on some paper towel to blot off the oil.

I don’t remember exactly the time when lemon meringue pies became my favourite dessert but it had to be relatively recent because I don’t normally like sweets. I used to make this pie quite often prior to meeting my coeliac boyfriend but since then I have eased off. This recipe was the first time I tried to make my own pastry which was so satisfying and actually not that hard! Since finding out I am sensitive to salicyates (amongst other things) I thought I wouldn’t be eating this again but actually with a few tweaks it can be failsafe and gluten free! I can’t remember where I got my first recipe for lemon meringue pie but here is my altered version which is pretty close to the original. There are a number of steps as you will be making three components: the pastry shell, the lemon filling and the fluffy meringue. Don’t be discouraged, its pretty easy!

Place flours, sugar and nuttelex in a food processor. Pulse for a bit and then blend on low till it resembles bread crumbs. You may need to stop and give it a mix as the dry flour tends to sink to the bottom and not become incorporated.

Add egg and process till it is incorporated and the mixture becomes clumpy. Again you may need to mix in the bottom.

Use your hands and knead it to form a dough ball. Slightly flatten it and wrap in cling film. Refrigerate for at least an hour. You need the butter to harden up or it will be too sticky to roll out.

Get two large sheets of baking paper (bigger than your tart tin) and place the unwrapped dough in between.

Roll the pastry and slowly turning and flipping. As you go alternate peeling off the baking paper to check your dough for cracks and holes. Push them together and fix up deep cracks made from the paper. Keep doing this until the pastry is large enough to cover the base of your tart tin and up the edge for the crust.

Once the dough is large enough an easy way to get it into the tin without breaking it is peel off one side of the paper and roll the dough over a rolling pin. Then peel off the other side of baking paper that should be on the top of the rolling pin. Then using the rolling pin, carefully line up the dough and roll it off the pin onto the tin.

Push the dough into the tin and up the sides. Fix it up and make it all fit into the tin.

Place one sheet of the used baking paper on top of the dough and put some pastry weights or rice on top before putting into an oven set at 180°C for 10 mins.

After 10 mins, take out the weight and bake for a further 10-15 mins till golden.

Set aside to cool completely.

Filling –

In a saucepan, combine cornflour, sugar, lemon juice and water and stir till smooth.

Place the saucepan on medium-high heat and stir constantly until boiling.

Once it starts to boil turn the heat down to low and continue to stir for another 30-40 sec until mixture turns from cloudy to transparent and becomes thick and smooth. This is when the cornstarch cooks.

Remove from heat and vigorously stir in the nuttelex and egg yolks till combined.

Refrigerate till cold.

Once cold, fill the cold pastry shell.

Meringue –

Make sure all your utensils are DRY, this is essential for making meringues.

Place egg white in a large bowl and beat on high.

Gradually add sugar about 2 tablespoons at a time and continue to beat the egg whites,

Continue beating until all the sugar has been added and it has been dissolved. You will know when this is the case is when you rub meringue between your fingers it is smooth and there are no sugar crystals left. It should look thick and glossy.

Top the filled pie with the meringue making peaks and troughs to increase surface area,

Bake for 7-10 mins 200°C or till the meringue is slightly coloured.

Take out the pie and cool before putting it in the fridge to chill. If you cut it while hot the filling will leak out as it will not have set.

Using the Aldi flour blends result in a light and crumbly pastry that is quite fragile. You can experiment with other blends or try adding xanthan gum if you want to get it more like biscuity short crust pastry. I’m not too fussy which is why I never have bothered. It also keeps in the fridge for a few days. You can always adjust the lemon juice if you find it too acidic (or not acidic enough).

The first time I made this bolognese sauce I was ecstatic with the result. It tasted super similar to one made with tomato sauce. My boyfriend was coming to visit so I made a batch and when he rang the door bell I literally ran to him telling him about the sauce. This version isn’t as wet and saucy as using tomato paste but it does balance the tartness and sweetness that tomatoes would normally bring. I normally use beef mince for this and throw in some coarsely chopped veggies that I have on hand. In this case I popped a can of lentils and some cabbage as well.

Failsafe Bolognese

Gluten free, dairy free, soy free, nut free, failsafe, egg free

Ingredients:

250g beef mince

2 inches of a leek, chopped

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

3 heaped tablespoons of the failsafe “tomato” sauce (more if you feel you need it)

A dash of water

1 tablespoon of canola oil

Sprinkle of parsley for garnish

Method:

Heat up a pan with canola oil and fry off the chopped leek and garlic till the leeks soften and becomes nice and fragrant.

Pop in the meat and fry it and break it up as you go along.

Once the meat is cooked add the tomato sauce (it’s just an approximation so go heavy if you like, or do less if you prefer!) and a dash of water if you think it is too thick and dry.

Serve on some gluten free pasta with a sprinkle of chopped parsley to garnish. I like the Orgran Rice Spirals as they are only made with rice and water.

If you would like to add veggies you can pop them in at the beginning with the leek and garlic if it takes a while to cook (things like cabbage). If they are very quickly cooked, and just need a warm through, like canned lentils, then pop them in around the time when you add the tomato sauce.